Garmonov was extremely young, and had not yet learnt to time his visits; he usually came at the wrong hour and did not know when to leave. He realized at last that he was boring Sonpolyev almost to madness. It dawned upon him that he was taking Sonpolyev from his work. He recalled that Sonpolyev had borne himself with a constrained politeness toward him, and that at times a caustic phrase escaped his lips.

Garmonov grew painfully red, a sudden flame spread itself under the smooth skin of his drawn cheeks. He rose irresolutely. Then he sat down again, for he saw that Sonpolyev was about to say something. Sonpolyev took up the thread of the conversation in a depressed voice:

“So you’ve put a mask on! What do you want me to understand by that?”

Garmonov muttered in a confused way:

“It’s necessary to dissemble sometimes.”

Sonpolyev would not listen further, but gave way to his irritation:

“What do you understand about it? What do you know of masks? There is no mask without a responding soul. It is impossible to put on a mask without harmonizing your soul with its soul. Otherwise the mask is uncovered.”

Sonpolyev grew silent, and looked miserably before him. He did not look at Garmonov. He felt again a strange, instinctive hate for him, such as he felt at their first meeting. He had always tried to hide this hate under a mask of great heartiness; he had urged Garmonov most earnestly to visit him, and praised Garmonov’s verses to every one. But from time to time he spoke coarse, malicious words to the timid young man, who then flushed violently and shrank back within himself. Sonpolyev was quick to pity him, but soon again he detested his cautious, sluggish ways; he thought him secretive and cunning.

Garmonov rose, said good-bye, and went out. Sonpolyev was left alone. He felt miserable because his work had been interrupted. He no longer felt in the same working mood. A secret malice tormented him. Why should this seemingly insignificant youth, Garmonov, evoke such bitterness in him? He had a large mouth, a long, very smooth face; his movements were slow, his voice had a drawl; there was something ambiguous about him, and enigmatical.

Sonpolyev began sadly to pace the room. He stopped before the wall, and began to speak. There are many people nowadays who have long conversations with the wall—the wall, indeed, makes an interested interlocutor, and a faithful one.

“It is possible,” he said, “to hate so strongly and so poignantly only that which is near to one. But in what does this devilish nearness consist? By what impure magic has some demon bound our souls together? Souls so unlike one another! Mine, that of a man of action with a bent for repose; and his, the soul of a large-mouthed fledgling, who is as cunning as a conspirator, and as cautious as a coward. And what is there in his character that conflicts so strangely with his appearance? Who has stolen the best and most needful part from this moly-coddle’s soul?”

He spoke quietly, almost in a murmur. Then he exclaimed as though in a rage:

“Who has done this? Man, or the enemy of man?”

And he heard the strange answer:

“I!”

Some one spoke this word in a clear, shrill voice. It was like the sharp yet subdued ring of rusty steel. Sonpolyev trembled nervously. He looked round him. There was no one in the room.

He sat down in the arm-chair and looked, scowling, on the table, buried under books and papers; and he waited. He awaited something. The waiting grew painful. He said loudly:

“Well, why do you hide? You’ve begun to speak, you might as well appear. What do you wish to say? What is it?”

He began to listen intently. His nerves were strained. It seemed as though the slightest noise would have sounded like an archangel’s trumpet.

Then there was sudden laughter. It was sharp, and it was like the sound of rusty metal. The spring of some elaborate toy seemed to unwind itself, and trembled and tinkled in the subdued quiet of the evening. Sonpolyev put the palms of his hands over his temples, and rested upon his elbows. He listened intently. The laugh died away with mechanical evenness. It was evident that it came from somewhere quite near, perhaps from the table itself.

Sonpolyev waited. He gazed with intent eyes at the bronze inkstand. He asked derisively: “Ink sprite, was it not you that laughed?”

The sharp voice, quite unlike the muffled voice of phantoms, answered with the same derision: “No, you are mistaken; and you are not very brilliant. I am not an ink sprite. Don’t you know the rustling voices of ink sprites? You are a poor observer.”

And again there was laughter, again the rusty spring tinkled as it unwound itself.

Sonpolyev said: “I don’t know who you are—and how should I know! I cannot see you. Only I think that you are like the rest of your fraternity: you are always near us, you poke your noses into everything, and you bring sadness and evil spells upon us; yet you dare not show yourselves before our eyes.”

The metallic voice replied: “The fact is, I came to have a talk with you. I love to talk with such as yourself—with half-folk.”

The voice grew silent, and Sonpolyev waited for it to laugh. He thought: “He must punctuate his every phrase with that hideous laughter.”

Indeed, he was not mistaken. The strange visitor really talked in this way: first he would speak a few words, then he would burst out into his sharp, rusty laughter. It seemed as though he used his words to wind up the spring, and that later the spring relaxed itself with his laughter.

And while his laughter was still dying away with mechanical evenness the guest showed himself from behind the inkstand.

He was small, and was no taller from head to foot than the fourth finger. He was grey-steel in colour. Owing to his small stature and to his rapid movements it was hard to tell whether the dim glow came from the body, or from a garment that stretched lightly over it. In any case it was something smooth, something expressly simple. The body seemed like a slender keg, broader at the belt, narrower at the shoulders and below. The arms and legs were of equal length and thickness, and of like nimbleness and flexibility; it seemed as though the arms were very long and thick, and the legs disproportionately short and thin. The neck was short. The face was hardy. The legs were widely astride. At the end of the back something was visible in the nature of a tail or a thick cone; like growths were upon the sides, under the elbows. The strange figure moved quickly, nimbly, and surely.

The monster sat down on the bronze ridge of the inkstand, pushing aside the wooden pen-holder with his foot in order to be more comfortable. He grew quiet.

Sonpolyev examined his face. It was lean, grey, and smooth. His eyes were small and glowed brightly. His mouth was large. His ears stuck out and were pointed at the top.

He sat there, grasping the ridge with his hands, like a monkey. Sonpolyev asked: “Gracious guest, what do you want to say to me?”

And in answer a slight voice—mechanically even, unpleasantly sharp and rather rusty in tone—made itself heard: “Man with a single head and a single soul, recall your past, your primitive experience of those ancient days when you and he lived in the same body.”

And again there was laughter, shrill and sharp, piercing the ear.

While he was still laughing, the guest, with mechanical agility, turned a somersault; he stood on his hands, and Sonpolyev saw for the first time what he had taken for a tail was really a second head. This head did not differ in any way, as far as he could see, from the other head. Whether the heads were too small for him to observe, or whether the heads did not actually differ, it was quite certain that Sonpolyev did not see the slightest distinction between them. The arms reversed themselves as on hinges, and became quite like the legs; the first head, then losing its colour, hid itself between these arm-legs; while the former legs reversed themselves mechanically and became the arms.

Sonpolyev looked at his strange guest with astonishment. The guest made wry faces and danced. And when at last he grew still and his laughter gradually died away, the second head began to speak: “How many souls have you, and how many consciousnesses? Can you tell me that? You pride yourself on the amazing differentiation of your organs, you have an idea that each member of your body fulfils its own well-defined functions. But tell me, stupid man, have you anything whereby to preserve the memory of your previous existences? The other head contains the rest of you, your early memories and your earlier experience. You argue subtly and craftily across the threshold of your pitiful consciousness, but your misfortune is that you have only one head.”

The guest burst out again into rusty, metallic laughter, and he laughed this time rather long. He laughed and he danced at the same time. He turned somersaults, or he rested upon one arm and upon one leg, thereby causing one of his sides to turn upward—until it was impossible to distinguish any of his four extremities. Afterwards his limbs again turned mechanically, and it became obvious that the growths on his sides were also heads. Each head spoke and laughed in its turn. Each head grimaced, mocked at him.

Sonpolyev exclaimed in great fury: “Be silent!”

The guest danced, shouted, and laughed.

Sonpolyev thought: “I must catch him and crush him. Or I must smash the monster with a blow of the heavy press.”

But the guest continued to laugh and to make wry faces.

“I dare not take him with my hands,” thought Sonpolyev. “He might burn or scorch me. A knife would be better.”

He opened his penknife. Then he quickly directed its sharp point toward the middle of his guest’s body. The four-headed monster gathered himself into a ball, flapped his four paws, and burst into piercing laughter. Sonpolyev threw his knife on the table, and exclaimed: “Hateful monster! What do you want of me?”

The guest jumped upon the sharply pointed lid of the inkstand, perched himself upon one foot, stretched his arms upward, and exclaimed in an ugly, shrill voice: “Man with one head, recall your remote past when you and he were in the same body. The time you shared together in a dangerous adventure. Recall the dance of that terrible hour.”

Suddenly it grew dark. The laughter resounded, hoarse and hideous. The head was going round....

Light columns moved forward out of the darkness. The ceiling was low. The torches glowed dimly. The red tongues of flame wavered in the scented air. The flute poured out its notes. Handsome young limbs moved in measure to its music.

And it seemed to Sonpolyev that he was young and powerful, and that he was dancing round a banqueting table. A shrivelled, insolent, drunken face was looking at him; the banqueter was laughing uproariously, he was happy, and the dance of the half-naked youths pleased him. Sonpolyev felt that a furious rage was strangling him, and was hindering him from carrying out his project. He danced past the carousing man and his hands trembled. A reddish mist of hate dimmed his sight.

His second soul wakened at the same time; it was the cunning, the sidling, the feline soul. This time the youth smiled at the happy man; he floated gracefully past him, a sweet, gentle boy. The banqueter laughed loudly. The youth’s naked limbs and bared torso cheered the lord of the feast.

And again there was hate, which dimmed his eyes with a red haze, and caused his hands to tremble with fury.

Some one whispered angrily: “Are we going to twirl so long fruitlessly? It is time. It is time. Put an end to it!”

The friendly spirits prevailed. The two souls flowed together. Hate and cunning became one. There was a light, floating movement, then a powerful stroke; nimble feet swept the youth into the swift, beautiful dance. There was a hoarse outcry. Then an uproar. Everything became confused....

And again there was darkness.

Sonpolyev awoke: the same small monster was dancing on the table, grimacing and laughing uproariously.

Sonpolyev asked: “What’s the meaning of this?”

His guest replied: “Two souls once dwelt in this youth, and one of them is now yours; it is a soul of exultant emotions and of passionate desires, it is an ever insatiable, trembling soul.”

Then there was laughter, jarring on the ear. The monster danced on.

Sonpolyev shouted: “Stop, you dance devil! It seems to me you wish to say that the second soul of this primitive youth lives in the feeble body of this despicable, smooth-faced youngster?”

The guest stopped laughing and exclaimed:

“Man, you have at last understood what I wished to tell you. Now perhaps you will guess who I am, and why I have come.”

Sonpolyev waited until the trembling, shrill laughter ceased, and he answered his guest:

“You are the uniter of souls. But why did you not join us at our birth?”

The monster hissed, curled up, then stopped and threw upward one of his side heads and exclaimed:

“We can repair this if you like. Do you wish it?”

“I wish it,” Sonpolyev replied quickly.

“Call him to you on New Year’s Eve, and call me. This hair will enable you to summon me.”

The monster ran quickly to the lamp, and placing upon its stand a short, thin black hair continued speaking: “When you light it I’ll come. But you ought to know that neither you nor he will preserve afterward a separate existence. And the man who will depart from here shall contain both souls, but it will be neither you nor he.”

Then he disappeared. His shrill, rusty laughter still resounded and tormented the ear, but Sonpolyev no longer saw any one before him. Only a black hair on the flat stand of the lamp reminded him of his guest.

Sonpolyev took the hair and put it into his purse.

The last day of the year was approaching midnight.

Garmonov was sitting once more at Sonpolyev’s. They spoke quietly, in subdued voices. It was painful. Sonpolyev asked: “You do not regret coming to my lonely party?”

The smooth-faced young man smiled, and this made his teeth seem very white. He drawled out his words very slowly, and what he said was so tedious and so empty that Sonpolyev had no desire to listen to him. Sonpolyev, without continuing the conversation, asked quite bluntly: “You remember your earlier existence?”

“Not very well,” answered Garmonov.

It was clear that he did not understand the question, and that he thought Sonpolyev had asked him about his childhood.

Sonpolyev frowned in his vexation. He began to explain what he wished to say. He felt that his speech was involved and long. And this vexed him still more.

But Garmonov had understood. He grew cheerful. He flushed slightly. His words had a more animated sound than usual: “Yes, yes, I sometimes feel that I have lived before. It is such a strange feeling. It’s as though that life was fuller, bolder and freer; and that I dared to do things that I dare not do now.

“And isn’t it true,” asked Sonpolyev in some agitation, “that you feel as though you had lost something, as though you now lack the most significant part of your being?”

“Yes,” answered Garmonov with emphasis. “That’s precisely my feeling.”

“Would you like to restore this missing part?” Sonpolyev continued to question. “To be once more as before, whole and bold; to contain in one body—which shall feel itself light and young and free—the fullness of life and the union of the antagonistic identities of our human breed. To be, indeed, more than whole; to feel as it were, in one’s breast, the beating of a doubled heart; to be this and that; to join two clashing souls within oneself, and to wrest the necessary manhood and hardihood for great deeds from the fiery struggle of intense contradictions.”

“Yes, yes,” said Garmonov, “I, too, sometimes dream about this.”

Sonpolyev was afraid to look at the irresolute, confused, smooth face of his young visitor. He vaguely feared that Garmonov’s face would disconcert him. He made haste.

Besides, midnight was approaching. Sonpolyev said quietly: “I have the means in my hands to realize this dream. Do you wish to have it realized?”

“I should like to,” said Garmonov irresolutely.

Sonpolyev raised his eyes. He looked at Garmonov with firmness and decision, as though he demanded something urgent and indispensable from him. He looked with a fixed intentness into the dark youthful eyes, which should have flamed fire, but instead they were the cold, crafty eyes of a little man with half a soul.

But it seemed to Sonpolyev that under his fixed fiery gaze Garmonov’s eyes were becoming inflamed with enthusiasm and burning wrath. The young man’s smooth face had suddenly become significant and stern.

“Do you wish it?” Sonpolyev asked him once more.

Garmonov replied quickly, with decision:

“I wish it.”

And then a strange, sharp, shrill voice pronounced: “Oh, small and cunning man; you who once during your ancient existence did a deed of great hardihood—that was when you joined your crafty soul to the flaming soul of an indignant man—tell us in this great, rare hour, have you firmly decided to merge your soul with the other, the different soul?”

And Garmonov answered even more quickly and more decisively: “I wish to!”

Sonpolyev listened to the shrill voice of the questioner. He recognized him. He was not mistaken: the “I wish to!” of Garmonov had already lost itself in the rusty, metallic laughter of that extraordinary visitor.

Sonpolyev waited until the laughter ceased; then he said: “But you should know that you will have to reject all dissembling. And all the joys of separate existence. Once I achieve my magic we shall both perish, and we shall set free our souls, or rather we shall fuse them together, and there shall be neither I nor you—there will be one in our place, and he shall be fiery in his conception, and cold in his execution. Both of us will have to go, in order to give a place to him, in whom both of us will be united. My friend, have you resolved upon this terrible thing? It is a great and terrible thing.”

Garmonov smiled a strange, faltering smile. But the fiery glance of Sonpolyev extinguished the smile; and the young man, as if submitting to some inevitable and fated command, pronounced in a dim, lifeless voice: “I have decided. I wish it. I am not afraid.”

Sonpolyev took the hair out of his wallet with trembling fingers. He lit a candle. Behind it hid the four-headed visitor. His grey body seemed to quake; and it vacillated in the wavering flame that fondled in its flickering embraces the white body of the submissive candle.

Garmonov opened his eyes wide, and they steadfastly followed Sonpolyev’s movements. Sonpolyev put one end of the hair to the flame. The hair curled slightly, grew red, gave a flare. It burned very slowly, with a quiet rhythmic crackle, which resembled the laugh of the nocturnal guest.

The words of the strange guest were simple but terrible. At first Sonpolyev was barely conscious of them; he was so agitated and so absorbed by the burning of the magic hair that he could see no connexion with the simple, familiar words of the monster. Suddenly terror came upon him. He had understood. There was derision in those simple, terribly simple words.

“Little soul, failing little soul, timid little soul.”

Sonpolyev, frightened, looked at Garmonov. The smooth-faced young man sat there strangely shrunken. His face was pale. Beads of perspiration showed on his forehead. A pitiful, forced smile twisted his lips. When he saw that Sonpolyev was looking at him he shrank even more, and whispered in a broken, hollow voice, as though against his will: “It is terrible. It is painful. It is unnecessary.”

Suddenly he hunched like a cat—a cunning, timid, evil cat—and sprang forward; thus deformed, he pushed out his over-red lips and blew upon the almost consumed hair. The flame flickered upward, trembled and died. A tiny cloud of blue smoke spread itself in the still air. The shrill laughter of the nocturnal guest pierced the ears.

The hideous words resounded: “Miscarried! Miscarried!”

Garmonov sat down. He smiled guiltily and cunningly. Sonpolyev looked at him with unseeing eyes.

The clock began to strike in the next room. And to each stroke the uniter of souls responded with the hoarse outcry: “Miscarried!”

And he laughed again his metallic laughter like a wound-up spring. He whirled round and grimaced; he seemed to lose himself in the lifeless yellow electric light.

At the twelfth stroke, the last voice of the passing year, the hideous voice grew silent.

“Miscarried!”

And the horrible laughter of the vanishing monster died away. Garmonov, truly rejoicing over his deliverance from an unhappy fate, rose, and said: “A happy New Year!”